“I’m sorry, Samson, and I haven’t a scrap of food with me.”
“No, sir, nor nobody else. You see, we were all out for exercise, and not on the march, with our wallets full. And that aren’t the worst of it. Master Fred, I could lie down and cry.”
“Because you are so hungry?”
“No, sir; but when I think of what we’ve left behind at the Hall. Ducks, sir, and chickens; and there was hams. Oh!” groaned Samson, laying his hand just below his heart, “those hams!”
Fred was weak, tired, faint, and low-spirited, but the doleful aspect of his henchman was so comic that he burst into a fit of laughter.
“Well, Master Fred,” said the ex-gardener, letting the reins rest on the horse’s neck, as he involuntarily tightened his belt, “I did think better of you than to s’pose you’d laugh at other folk’s troubles. Then there was the cider, too. It wasn’t so good as our cider at the Manor, sir, for they hadn’t got the apples at the Hall to give it the flavour, spite of old Nat’s bragging and boasting; but still, it wasn’t so very bad for a thirsty man, though I will say it was too sharp, and some I tasted yesterday told tales.”
“What of, Samson?”
“My lazy, good-for-nothing brother, sir,” said Samson, triumphantly.
“Told tales of your brother—of Nat?”
“Yes, sir. There was a twang in that cider that said quite aloud, ‘Dirty barrel,’ and that he hadn’t taken the trouble to properly wash it out before it was used; but all the same, though it was half spoiled by his neglect, I’d give anything for a mugful of it now, and a good big home-made bread cake.”